Structural Elements
All web pages are created by using at least a few simple tags. It is my belief that the three most natural tags to use in an HTML document are the tags for paragraphs, linking sites together, and displaying images.
HTML
The first thing that must go into a web page are the document tags. These define the HTML document and let the browser know how it should be formatted. All HTML documents begin with the open html tag and end with the closed html tag (anything within these tags, if coded correctly, can be viewed using a web browser):
<html>
</html>
Head
Next is the head tag. This indicates where the heading of the document is located. Most of the code within the head tag cannot be viewed by the public, unless they understand HTML and are looking directly at the code. As with most HTML tags the pair look identical except for the forward slash indicating the close tag:
<html>
<head>
</head>
</html>
Title
However, the only part of the head that most people can see is the contents of the title tag. This is title of the web site; not the filename, but whatever the actual title is. It is placed in the title bar of the window in which the web page is being viewed, as long as a graphical browser is being used. See the bar at the top of this window: HTML for Beginners - Basic HTML. This title is used for saving the document within the browser, called favorites or bookmarks (depending on the browser).
<html>
<head>
<title>HTML for Beginners - Basic HTML</title>
</head>
</html>
Body
The last document tag that must be included to create a web page is the body tag. Anything contained within the body tag is what the end-user will see within their browser. This is the "meat and bones" of the page.
<html>
<head>
<title>HTML for Beginners - Basic HTML</title>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>